This invention relates to a signature collating and binding system with selectively controllable signature feeders, printers, and other apparatus, and to a signature feeder with embedded printer.
Selective actuation of signature feeders by coded subscriber information is a known procedure which allows a single collating and binding system to simultaneously build different versions of a book of signatures, such as different editions of a magazine. A book of signatures, as is conventional, is any collection or group of signatures, each signature being composed of one or more sheets. The group of signatures can be progressively built up, one signature being laid over another signature. The outer signatures are overlaid upon the inner signatures in an aligned manner. The thickness of different books of signatures will randomly vary, depending on which feeders or inserters were actuated in response to the special interests of the subscribers. A book thickness caliper and circuit can continuously compare a detected book thickness with the book thickness which should have been selected under control of the coded information.
Any error, as detected by the caliper or by sensors at the signature feeders, causes the defective book to be rejected, and reordered. An example of such a system is disclosed in Abrams et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,899,165 issued Aug. 12, 1975 and assigned to the present assignee.
The mailing labels which are placed on each book of signatures must correspond to the coded information which produced the customized books of signatures. This has been accomplished in the past by reading preprinted labels to develop the coded information, or by storing the coded information on magnetic tape which is read and later controls a printer which prints the mailing information directly on the books of signatures. Printers have also been associated with card inserters, located after the signature feeders and before the stitcher, to print custom information such as renewal information on a loose card before it is inserted in an already constructed book of signatures. The card can be bound in by a paster to prevent its being lost from the book of signatures associated therewith.
Defective books as detected by a caliper or by sensors associated with the signature feeders or other devices along the collating line have been automatically rejected. The resulting empty space on the collating conveyor may be filled, as taught in the Abrams et. al. patent, by a replacement book of signatures. In other systems, a rejected book causes a new book of signatures to be automatically reordered. If preprinted labels are utilized, the label is rejected and a different means of printing the mailing label of the reordered book is used, such as an on-line printer. Rejected books can be reordered immediately if the zip code currently being produced can still be maintained; otherwise some special handling procedure is necessary such as to divert the reordered book when it reaches an output area. The entire collating system has been controlled by computers and/or programmable controllers as well as hard-wired circuitry.
Additionally, there are physical size limits to the ability to print on groups of signatures as they pass between signature feeders, and variance in thickness of different groups of signatures can adversely affect print quality. Furthermore, printing of labels and cards, on or off line, and printing between signature feeders does not allow for printing perpendicular to the spine of a signature, or a group of signatures.
The printing of labels and cards involve adapting conventional printers to the different requirements of a collating line. Often the labels and cards are printed off line, and are then applied to a book of signatures or inserted therein. If the printer should malfunction, the resulting defective book may be sent out as there has been no error detection means corresponding to the calipers and limit switches which detect other types of errors on the collating line. However, an error in a mailing label can be more serious than an error such as the addition or deletion of a signature from a book of signatures.
Despite the use of computers and programmable controllers, considerable manual attention to the binding line is necessary. As the hoppers for signatures becomes low, they must be filled to allow continuation of the operation. This is especially critical for the standard book replacement feeder, in which the number of replacement books needed cannot be reasonably estimated in advance, as it will vary depending on the number of random rejects which occur during the collating and binding operation.
While the above systems are versatile in producing different editions of magazines or the like during a production run, they suffer from a number of disadvantages. The contents of the different editions or variations are still controlled entirely by the signature which are loaded in the signature feeders. Since the number of signature feeders reaches a practical maximum, there is a limit to the variations which can be produced in concurrently run books of signatures.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,818, one solution to some of these problems is proposed. A noncontact printer is located within a collating line, between adjacent signature feeders, to custom print information on the signatures fed from upstream feeders. The downstream feeders then deliver signatures over the printed signature, and the books are then bound, so that one or more intermediate signatures in the bound books have custom printing. A second non-contact printer, located after the trimmer prints mailing labels under control of the mailing coded data. Both noncontact printers may be of the dot matrix type, such as ink jet, which print along one direction only. Movement of the collating conveyor provides the other direction needed to form characters by a matrix of dots.
Each printer is followed by an optical scanner which detects the absence of characters in any line where a character should have been printed. The scanner automatically compensates for background variations in the surface against which the characters are printed. Any errors result in rejection of the book of signatures.
A replacement book feeder contains standard books of signatures which are selectively fed into empty conveyor spaces resulting from the rejection of defective books. When the standard books in the hopper fall below a predetermined level, new standard books are automatically reordered and are automatically diverted off the conveyor and into the hopper. When a book is rejected, the computer determines whether it should be reordered immediately, or should be replaced by a standard book.